2007-01-20

Soul Skirmish

Last night when I got home with Meaghan after taking her to a birthday party, my laptop was sitting on the dining room table. With the BOSD (Window's blue screen of death) on the screen. I restarted it, and it ran through some kind of scan and seemed to recognizing and fixing some stuff. But it won't start. It tries to launch Windows, then goes to a nice black screen. Nothing. Not even in safe mode.

Normally, this would drive me right out of my mind. As I have mentioned before, I really really don't like it when my technology doesn't work. My little laptop is my gateway to the world, my connection. I do all kinds of church work, I write, I stay connected with friends, I read, I play music. We are definitely a 2 computer couple. We both use our computers way too much to share.

Since I have been trying not to sweat the petty things, I fiddled with it for awhile and then left it. I played Tetris with my husband (he recently treated our family to a couple of the old style games like Space Invaders and Tetris that plug right into our TV).

I went to bed, resisting the urge to try and fix my computer. I didn't sleep well, dreaming about possible ways to fix it. After awhile I woke up, my mind racing.

At that point, I had a conversation with God. I have been feeling lately that I need to draw better boundaries around my computer use. I need to be better about turning it off, or just leaving it alone. I have known this is my soul. In the darkness, I could fell God pressing this point a little harder, but still gently. I could feel Him probing the balance between my technical time and my spiritual time. And yeah, guess which side came up wanting.

I tried to argue about how much I need the computer for work etc. But my heart had to concede. I know that the balance of computer time to other things needs to decrease.

So I wrestled with my will, to stay in bed, to be still. I resisted the urge to get up, and turn on Troy's computer so I could write this post. I stayed in bed, and I went back to sleep.

Right now I'm running diagnostics on it. I don't know if I'm going to be able to sort it out, or if I will have to take it in. I don't know when I'll have it back.

I do know this though. I will not (with God's help) let it monopolize my heart and thoughts today. I will prepare my Godly Play lesson for church tonight with my whole heart. I will engage in community tonight. Tomorrow I will enjoy Sabbath and rest. I will play with my kids, I will read a book, maybe take a nap.

I know it won't be so easy when the computer is fixed. But I also know that it's something I need to tend to.

On Wednesday night at community group, this image in James 1 really resonated with me:

"In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life." The Message

I think the landscaping is beginning! And maybe where there was an ugly hunk of metal before, God will plant some beautiful flowers.